


the tide and the moon

by theredhoodie



Series: the weight of a soul [2]
Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2554547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate is a child of God, of his glory and will, taking out the darkest of hell-spawn creatures. She's a warrior and yet she's lost and alone. She has nowhere to call home, no one to watch her back, no one to warm her bed at night and no one to keep her loneliness at bay. It's a fault, perhaps, that she can't do this alone. She can't live alone. She needs someone to talk to, someone to tell her fears to, someone to pray with. She cannot live a solitary life. She tries not to think about either of the Geckos, but her mind slinks off toward the darkness that surrounds them against her will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the tide and the moon

**Author's Note:**

> So I caved and decided to make this into a little trilogy. I got a little carried away with this part, but I don't think any one will mind.
> 
> Also, a big thank you to my beta Jessie for making everything smoother and more cohesive!

I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine so you know that there's nothing but light when I see you.

-Shinji Moon

* * *

 

Kate is heading north. There's no real reason for it; it's just the direction she ends up going. She looks at a map she found at a gas station and realizes she is, in fact, near the Arizona border. She sits alone in a hotel room, looking it over, eyes scanning the lines of he roads and the dots of the towns that litter the map.

She's been scraping by on the remnants of five hundred bucks, can't think of any way to make money that doesn't make her skin crawl and she's no thief.

And she hasn't seen Richie for weeks.

His gift still adorns her arm. The steel snake housing a sharp blade presses against her skin, leaving a deep indent when she takes it off before she goes to sleep. That is,  _if_  she remembers to take it off; the only time she doesn't is when she falls into bed, bloody and exhausted from a night of slaying.

The culebra never stop. She has no idea where they come from, how come there are so many, and what their purpose is on this earth besides killing and feeding. She thinks that there has to be more to their lives than just that. At least, that's what she keeps telling herself every night as she sits in her motel room and contemplates where exactly her life is heading.

Kate knows it's long past her eighteenth birthday, but she lost track of the days a long time ago. She sleeps more under the light of the sun than the moon; the white rays are much more welcome to her eyes than the fiery ball of gas that breathes life into every living thing. She lays out under the sun's rays only on the days she's able to pull herself together, even if it's only for a short time. Her skin gets tanner by the day and the few freckles she had have erupted into a cascade of flecks across her skin. Her hair is long and getting lighter from the late afternoons in the sun.

She is  _radiant_.

But, on the inside, her soul is suffering. Her brother tried to have her killed, Seth Gecko left her alone to chase tail that he'd already lost and she fears the worst for Richie. Maybe, after she took him back to her motel room in Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, she kept him too long and Santanico noticed. Richie is powerful, but Santanico is some sort of goddess. If he felt her wrath—Kate can't bear to think of it. Instead, she turns on the television to drown out the silence and imagines he's there with her.

She craves his strong hands and cool touch, the bumping of his glasses against her nose, and the sweet swell of utter reverence that materializes from watching the way he cuts through culebra like they're stalks of wheat. His hands can do such brutal and bloody things, but they can also carefully cup her face and lightly tease across her flesh, like he's never hurt a soul before.

She clings to the memory of the heat and the burning in her lungs, the way every flurry of chills that danced down her spine and curled through her insides made her warmer each time. She replays every swipe of his fingertips, against her skin and over the fabric of her clothes—it fuels and fools her in the lonely nights.

It's unstaintly, but Kate hasn't been a good girl for a long time. It's easy to sink under the sheets and close her eyes, replaying the scene over and over again behind her eyelids while her heart races and jumps behind her ribs. It's easy to slide her own hands across her skin, over the ridges of her ribs, and her braless breasts. Her knees knock together as one hand moves over her flat stomach to the hem of her underwear. The television is background noise now, but she's able to pretend that it just might block out her sins if she tries hard enough. But how could it really be sinful, if it's just her body, the body God gave her to possess on His Earth?

She often gets sidetracked by a mix of guilt and shame before she just slips her fingers under the thin cotton waistband but, by the time weeks have passed since Richie offered her that deadly piece of jewelry, she knows what to do. She imagines Richie, but sometimes even that's too much of a stretch and she's so focused that she can't even conjure up an image of him in her head. But he's usually there; when she slips a finger inside, when she squirms around on the mattress, trying to get more comfortable. She wants nothing more than to have her every breath caught by a mouth with lips colder than her own, but she's left with only her imagination in an empty motel room.

It's impossible, though, to get that same warmth to sink into her belly and it's usually two fingers twisting inside, while her other hand works on the buddle of nerves that has her curling her toes and pushes her toward the precipice. It takes time, usually a lot of time, but it always slips by as her heartbeat increases its tempo and her body grows warmer. It's never the same, no matter how many times she tries, but it gets close and with just the right amount of pressure, she can make her hips jerk and sparks of warmth jump in the back of her stomach.

8

Kate is woken up by the sound of buzzing. It takes her a moment to pinpoint its source. Scrambling out of bed, she stumbles to the jacket hanging over the back of the chair and searches the pockets. She finds a phone; one of Seth's burners that she's kept charged even though she's never heard it ring before.

"Hello?" she answers before it can go to voicemail.

"Hey there, princess."

It's Seth.

Kate blinks into the bright room and sits down on the end of the bed. Her face is stunned into a mask of disbelief. It's been months since she last heard from the elder Gecko.  _Months_. "Seth," she says—just to make sure.

"Yeah, the one and only," he replies, arrogance oozing through the speaker.

Kate clenches her free hand into a fist against her knee. "What the hell," she says, delivering each word that drops from her lips with a slow, simmering anger. "What is wrong with you? Seth, you've been gone for over  _three months_!"

They both knew when he left all those weeks ago that his return was more than unlikely. Despite this, she would have been happier if he never stepped foot in her life ever again. This phone call is already causing the concrete and steel foundations she's been building since before he left to rot and crumble with each passing second.

Seth sighs heavily into the phone, making her wince away from the speaker. "I know. I wasn't gonna call—"

"You shouldn't have," she snaps, smoothing out her fist and clenching her fingers around her knee.

"I was worried about you, Kate."

She rolls her eyes and tilts back her head, a wry laugh escaping. "Right, of course you were. How's that millionaire's life playing hideout with the ex goin' for you?" Bitterness drips off her words like a cobra's venom.

"It's going." He accepts every single thing she can throw at him without making any move to apologize—which isn't unexpected, but still. "Look, Kate, I understand if you don't want to see me, but let me at least get you some money. You've gotta be running low."

She is more than low. She barely eats anything these days, but the gnawing hunger is something she's grown used to. She has no one in this country to help her and no way to cross the border without getting caught by the border patrol with suspicion behind her eyes and blood under her nails. "How would you get money to me anyway?" Her voice is a little less sharp now that she's remembered just how long it's been since she had a full meal. The thought of having enough cash to buy anything of nutrients sways her. She doesn't want anyone's charity, but she can't exist on nothing but air, dreams of fiery battles, and thoughts of Richie.

"It's easy," he says, like it's nothing, and then explains it to her. While he speaks, her clenches and unclenches her fist and runs her hand through her hair. "Vanessa has an offshore account and some hiding places. If you can get to a bank, I'll wire you some money."

It sounds so  _simple_. Kate isn't even sorry that she won't be stepping back onto American soil any time soon. Her soul is blemished and encased in the Mexican desert and its hot sun.

She lets out an untimely laugh when she realizes that Seth came back for her before Richie did, even if it was just by phone call.

"Kate?" Seth prompts on the other end of the line, his voice laced with concern.

She forces herself to control the incredulity bubbling up inside her chest and rubs a hand over her face. "Okay, sure, I'll take your money, Seth. It's the least I can do since it's your fault my daddy's dead and I'm stuck here." The words fall so harshly from her lips she's sure he's hung up when the silence stretches from five seconds to twenty. She pulls the phone away from her ear to check but the screen says they're still connected.

"I deserved that," he says finally. Kate raises her eyebrows and bites down on her bottom lip. "I don't want you getting mugged, I'll only send a thousand."

Kate feels a twinge of remorse, but shoves it down. She can't afford to be soft hearted anymore. She can't. "Thanks," she says shortly. Her hand has been resting against the crook of her neck for a full minute and she finally drops it to her lap. "Where are you?" She lets the question slip out with more softness than she intended. She grinds her teeth together—she's not supposed to be  _soft_ , she's a culebra killer, she—

"I can't tell you."

She scoffs, turning her eyes skyward. "Of course not. Goodbye, Seth."

"Kate, wait—"

Kate hangs up.

She tosses the phone at the jacket, but it hits the carpeted floor instead. Remarkably, it stays in one piece. She crawls back into her nest of motel sheets and blankets, after standing for a moment in silence.

She props herself back against the pillows and runs the pads of her fingers over the cross hanging around her neck. Slipping her hand under the pillow next to her, she pulls out the flexible miniature rapier that Richie had given to her as a gift four or five weeks ago. She doesn't know exactly how long it has been, because the days and nights blur together and she can't afford to buy a calendar.

Kate runs her fingertips around the circlet and toys with the snakehead end. She takes it between her thumb and index fingers and pulls the thin, lethal blade from its decorative sheath. Pricking the end of her finger with the very tip, she watches the blood bubble up past the surface of her skin.

She tries to tell herself that it's not her fault that she misses the coppery tang against her taste buds. She tries to tell herself that it's not her fault that she misses the searing kisses after battle with Richie's face smeared in blood and her own splattered in crimson and ash.

Her face and clothes are so filthy that she doesn't even know what clean is anymore. She's a child of God, of his glory and will, taking out the darkest of hell-spawn creatures. She's a warrior and yet she's lost and alone. She has nowhere to call home, no one to watch her back, no one to warm her bed at night and no one to keep her loneliness at bay.

It's a fault, perhaps, that she can't do this alone. She can't  _live_  alone. She needs someone to talk to, someone to tell her fears to, someone to pray with. She cannot live a solitary life.

She's stubborn, because she could have asked Seth to help her with that. She could beg for him to help her to cross the border and he could definitely find her a life to live with his history of cons. She could start a normal life, one that didn't have anything to do with culebra. But that was Seth's dream, not hers. She didn't  _want_  to never feel the weight of a scythe or blade in her hands again. She can't think of going a day without getting a splinter in her palm from a stake, washing blood off her skin, and scrubbing clothes clean in hotel sinks.

8

She leaves Seth's jacket in the car. It would cause too much suspicion, even in Mexico, for her to wear it in the daylight out in public. She dresses in the nicest clothes she can find and shamefully steals a blazer hanging on a clothing line from the backyard of a house she passes on the way into town. She walks slowly, feeling naked without any weapons hidden in her pockets. Even Richie's gift is back in the car. She steels her resolve—even though she wants to turn back, grab her things and bolt—and takes in a breath before squaring her shoulders and walking inside the bank. She's been catching up on her Spanish, thanks to the televisions in most of the hotel rooms, and she thinks she has enough of the vocabulary down to follow Seth's steps to getting the money he sent.

The moment she steps into the bank she feels like everyone is staring at her, but she holds her chin high. Seth's words ring in her ears as she moves through the motions, her Spanish limited but good enough to get her through the procedure. She doesn't know how exactly she does it—it's like Seth is there, invisible but guiding her through every step of the way so that she doesn't look suspicious. Maybe it's just because the banks in Mexico are run differently than those in the US, or because she's not taking millions of dollars out, but she still walks out feeling like a criminal, no matter what she tells herself.

She expects people to follow her, to tackle her to the ground, and throw her in jail. Or something along those lines. But nothing like that happens. She gets back to her stolen car without a problem. She even half-fills the tank and drives back to the hotel after getting a full meal of chicken tacos with  _arroz_  and  _pico de gallo_. She inhales the first one and savors the second, her stomach welcoming the warm, fresh food.

Piling everything into her arms, Kate nudges the car door shut with her foot and shuffles toward her hotel room. It feels odd having a place in the same town as the bank, but she tells herself that she isn't the criminal, Seth is. She didn't steal his money, he gave it to her. If anyone ever asks her about it, she can easily pretend she doesn't know where he got it from and she will be off the hook.

Fumbling with the key, she manages to get it into the lock and twist, pushing into the door with her whole body. She makes a little noise and tries not to fall as the door finally gives way. She looks up as she rights herself, and there is Seth. No warning, no James Dean-esque leaning against the building next to her door. No, he's there, pacing near the end of her bed. And he's not alone either. There's a woman with him; sharp eyes, dark hair.

"You've gotta be kiddin' me," Kate says, dropping her arms' full of jacket, weapons, phone, circlet and money onto the bed. Vanessa—because it has to be Vanessa with that look in her eye—makes a face and stands up when Kate drops everything onto the mattress. She teeters over to Seth on high heels and stands at equal shoulders' height to him. "What the hell are you doin' here?"

Kate's eyes are on Seth. She can't stomach looking at the other woman. The woman who Kate knows Seth was imagining when he had whiskey on his breath and was kissing her and digging his hands into her hair and sliding his fingers under her shirt. At the thought, Kate raises her eyebrows in a challenge toward Seth. She wonders how much he told Vanessa about her and what he'd been doing for over a year south of the border.

"I was worried about you," Seth repeats the same words he told her over the phone.

Kate scoffs and crosses her arms tightly across her chest. "Why did you make me go to the bank to get the money if you were just gonna show up anyway?"

Seth's jaw tightens. "If you knew I was coming, you never would have told me where you were."

He's right, of course. She hadn't thought he would track the bank or the town she gave for him to wire the money to. She hadn't been thinking. This isn't her world, these cons and tricks. She isn't good at them.

She thought he would never set foot in Mexico again. And she was wrong.

"Fine. You saw me. You can go," she says, stepping aside and waving at the door.

Seth tilts his head. "Kate. C'mon…"

"No, Seth. If she wants to be ungrateful about us helpin' her, then we should just go. I already wasted a thousand dollars on her," Vanessa speaks up for the first time.

Kate instantly dislikes her. Tension fills Seth's shoulders. "I never asked for your money," Kate says, setting her eyes on Vanessa for the first time.

There are no introductions. They both know who the other is.

"Excuse me, that's  _my_  money, actually," Seth says, stepping between the two of them. Vanessa doesn't try to protest. Getting into a fight in front of Kate over money isn't something any of them wanted. "And that doesn't fucking matter okay. Kate, you're obviously not okay. Where's Richie?"

Kate frowns slightly, her eyes twitching over to the jacket and the weapons tucked inside, including the band that should be on her arm. It isn't and the lack of the weight of it is enough to make her feel lopsided, unbalanced. "He's doin' stuff, elsewhere," she says, drawing out each word and keeping her eyes away from Seth until she's finished. She meets his eyes then.

He sees right through her. "Doin' stuff, huh?"

"Don't act like you're a saint, Seth," Kate points an accusing finger at him. "You left me high and dry and never looked back at that motel."

Vanessa makes a huff and flicks her hair back. "This is pointless," she mutters.

"I thought Richie would look after you," Seth says, waving a hand at Kate.

Kate lets out a dry laugh. "Well, you thought wrong. I didn't see him for weeks after you left. He showed up for one fight—" she stops short and pushes aside the images of her own brother to push onward "—before he left me again and I haven't seen him since." He would always show up during culebra fights, every few weeks. Both of them had grown used to it, and then he just stopped, after that night Kate dragged him back to her motel.

Seth drops his arm and peers at her, curiously, before Vanessa physically puts herself in between them. "Okay, if y'all are done with your little lovers spat or whatever the hell that was, I'd like to leave now. I think I need to take a shower in bleach after sittin' on that bed."

She doesn't wait. She walks right past them both and out the door, turning around only once her heels were on concrete. "Well?" She raises her eyebrows and narrows her eyes at Seth.

He walks forward, but not toward Vanessa. He stops in front of Kate and gets close. "Kate, just let me help you," he says, voice soft.

She looks up at him defiantly and pushes away the hand that's trying to grab onto her arm. "Seth," she says, voice unwavering. "Please, just leave." While her eyes are filled with hurt and anger, she stays strong and doesn't move or cave.

Seth waits but gets nothing more from her. He steps back and sighs, sighs a heavy sigh that moves his entire body. "Fine," he says. There's something that makes him want to stay though—she can tell by the way he hesitates, but they both know it's for the best if he doesn't.

So he goes. He steps away from her, slowly, and follows Vanessa out of the room, closing the door behind him. Kate stays standing for a full sixty seconds, listening to the turnover of an engine and the roar of it disappear, before she falls backwards, aiming for the edge of the bed. She misses and ends up on the floor, back pressed against the mattress and frame.

Her hands shake and she presses the heels of them over her eyes as they begin to sting. She isn't supposed to be feeling this way about Seth. He should have never come here, so she could continue her existence without ever having to face him again. She doesn't want to remember any of it—not the way he left her, not the way he took care of her for a year, and definitely not the way his drunken escapades always led to them in bed together.

Kate grits her teeth and slams her palms down against the floor, staring at the bureau opposite her. "Don't do that, Kate," she tells herself. "Don't let him do that."

She drags her fingernails against the dirty carpet and swallows hard, lifting her trembling chin in defiance.

8

She has money now, so she's moved into a better hotel in a better city. This one has a pool. Kate keeps telling herself over and over that she's fine, that she's strong. She has to be, her momma engrained it into Kate's brain for as long as she had lived. And yet, some mornings, she wakes up feeling like she's only barely holding on, like she's been put together haphazardly with duct tape and Elmer's glue.

It isn't like she's not fighting culebra. She is. Fewer of them find her, but she still takes them out when they do. She slices and stabs and is left with blood and ash and flames around her. She is  _supposed_  to feel like she's doing the work of angels, but she just feels so alone that it isn't possible for her to feel so high.

It's barely dawn. The sun is just making its way higher over the horizon and Kate has been asleep for an hour at most after spending her night killing culebra. She has some scrapes and a bruise blooming on her shoulder, as well as one on the corner of her jaw, but she still has yet to be bitten. She's too fast for them to catch, and she never stays still long enough for them to do so.

That was a one-time deal.

There's a knock on her hotel door that brings her out of a dreamless sleep. It's sometime in November, she thinks, and it's still warmer than hell down here. She's wearing very little, just a t-shirt and a pair of panties, and she's more than a little irritated from being woken up. She mind is as blank as a fresh canvas when she shuffles over to the door, sliding over the chain and rubbing her eyes. "This better be damn good," she mutters under her breath, pulling open the door.

Her breath catches in her throat at the sight before her eyes. She can't help it. It's been close to two months since she's seen him last. He's leaning against the doorframe, one arm slung across his stomach, his hand hidden beneath his jacket. He's not wearing his glasses, but she can see them peeking out of his jacket pocket.

"Richie," she breathes out finally, like it's a sigh of relief.

He half-smirks, but it's more of a grimace to her eyes and panic floods her system before anger can set in. "Hey," he says, before she can say anything else. "Could you let me in? The sun's a little…"

Kate steps aside and pulls the door open with her. Her mind is still blank. She doesn't know what to say or how to act. He walks in slowly and she can't help notice the way he winces. "Are you okay?" she asks, kicking the door shut with her bare foot.

"Me? Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I b—" Richie's on the floor before he can even finish his sentence. From the looks of it, he was putting out his hand for the bed, but missed and was out of strength to do anything other than end up on the floor.

"Richie!" She's by his side in an instant, knees digging into the soft carpet. She puts a hand on his shoulder and sucks in a breath when she sees his abdomen. His arm falls to the floor and all she can see is red bleeding into the white of his shirt. " _Richie_ ," she says again, this time with that same twinge of selfish disbelief she had when she saw her father give up in those tunnels.

"I'm fine." He lies—he has to be lying. He shouldn't be this injured. Culebra were supposed to be able to heal from just about anything. "I just need to…."

He can't even finish his sentence.

"What happened?" she asks, not knowing if he'll answer, but needing to fill in the silence. Her mind scrambles to find her something—anything—to do to help. There's a mantra playing on repeat inside her head:  _Don't die, don't you dare die, don't die_ …

She sucks in a breath and unbuttons his shirt, trying not to gasp or gag or start crying when she sees the slash in his gut that's enough to make her wonder how the hell he managed to get to her in the first place.

He isn't healing, that's for sure. And she can see his insides, oozing, bloody,  _gory_ , which isn't a good thing. She can't even separate what is blood and what are organs.

"Oh my God," she whispers, trying to keep the contents of her stomach down, because this is way beyond her pay grade of killing culebra. That's gory, sure, but not ever like this; in a fight, it's quick and dirty. This is here, shoved into her face. She instantly wishes she hadn't kicked Seth out of her life two weeks beforehand.

"Oh my God," she repeats, rubbing her wrist against her forehead because she's sweating buckets and her hands are already covered in blood. Kate leans forward and slips her hands on either side of his head. He's blinking heavy and slow, like he's doing everything he can to stay conscious. "Richie? God… _Richie_ , answer me."

"Yeah," he says, and his voice is like a leaf on the wind. She barely catches it.

"What's wrong?" she asks. She can't help the hot tears that slip down her cheeks and she can't keep her voice steady. "What's going on? You have to tell me. Please." She's begging—and she never begs. She gets fiery and she yells and blames, but she never begs.

He tries to laugh but only hurts himself, blood seeping out of the gaping wound. "Should'a read the fine print on this whole culebra thing," he manages to get out. He moves his hand up and leans it heavily against her arm, using as much of his strength as he can muster. "Blood."

"Blood?" What—oh.

Of course he needs blood. He's a culebra, they survive on blood, but her heart picks up anyway at the thought of spilling her blood for him. "My blood?"

"Unless you feel like nabbing a cleaning lady." His voice is thin. He can barely keep his eyes open. His arm falls back against the carpet.

Kate swallows, throat dry. She sits back a little and takes her hands back. Her mind races to catch up with the events unfolding around her, with the man bleeding out on the floor in front of her. She scrambles to her feet and gets a small knife out of the pocket of her—Seth's—jacket. She flips it open and kneels next to Richie. She sucks in a breath before she goes to make a nick at her wrist, but his hand shoots up with more strength than she thought he had left to catch her hand.

"No," he says. "By your elbow. Hold your arm over the…" His voice trails off as his eyelids flutter.

Kate sucks in a shaky breath and lets his name slip out from between her lips, just as shaky and childish as Simba trying to wake up his father after getting trampled by the herd. She doesn't know if she's doing the right thing, or what this is supposed to achieve, but she knows that she can't wait any longer. She takes the blade, bites down on the inside of her mouth until she can taste copper, and then she slices deep into her arm. Not right at her elbow, but right under, into the fleshy part. It stings and she gasps out at the sensation, sharply sucking in air and turning her arm over, letting the blood seep and fall. Gravity does the rest and Kate feels light headed as she watches her blood mix with his over the ghastly wound. He didn't say how much, but Kate can't give away too much or she'll faint, so she stops after what she thinks is the right amount of time, praying that it's enough.

She clamps her hand over the wound and moves to the bathroom, tying off her bicep and inspecting the cut through the blood. She feels woozy but refuses to let herself collapse. The cut is deep and she loses bits of time, but soon her arm is closed up with butterfly tape and wrapped in a white bandage.

Richie hasn't moved from where he fell on the floor and she can barely stand. She falls onto the bed, her feet toward the pillows. She can't see in this light if he's healing, or if she's going to wake up to a very dead undead body in her room, but she can't keep her eyes open, so she slips away with one hand dangling over the edge of the bed.

8

Kate wakes up. The hours have slipped by. The sun is now high in the sky. Kate's mouth feels like cotton and she frowns into the mattress, hiding her face. The arm that hung over the edge of the bed is numb. She pulls it back and tries to clench her fingers into a fist. It takes a while, but soon she can move her fingers. She inhales before she pushes herself up on her elbow, only to feel a jolt of pain run up to her left arm and into her shoulder. She looks down and sees the bandage, the dots of blood that sunk through the gauze.

And then she remembers. She gasps as the images of Richie bleeding out on the floor appear before her mind's eye and forces herself up, looking down at the floor. There's a bloodstain on the floor, dark and cry, but no Richie. She looks up and sees him slouched in the corner, away from the sunlight and looking better already. His shirt is still open and he's covered in too much blood for her to see if he was fully healed, but he'd moved himself, so she guesses he's going to be okay.

She knows she can't stay in this room anymore. She pushes herself off of the bed and pulls on her jeans. Looking at the clock, she sees that it's been almost nine hours since Richie knocked on her door. She doesn't know what's going on and all she knows is that she needs to get away from here. She needs food and she needs room to breathe.

It's a little after four. She swipes some cash off the table and runs outside without changing her bandage. She leans back against the door, closing her eyes, breathing deep. Her heart hammers in her chest. She almost thinks of calling Seth, to see if that burner phone of his kept the number he called from, because she's not sure what she should be doing and—

"No," she tells herself, shaking her head and moving away from the door. She drags her fingernails over her scalp and walks over to her car. She tries not to think too much. She tries not to cry in public over tamales and a gallon of water she sucks down until her headache goes away.

By the time she makes it back to the hotel, it's dusk, the sky's turned to a dusty orange and the sun has dipped down below the horizon. Kate hesitates in front of the door, toying with the key in her hand. She can't hide from this, there's nothing she can do but face what's behind that door. She stands there, rubbing her hand over the cut on her arm until she growls at herself and opens the door.

The room is empty. "Richie?" she says, even though the room is tiny and there's nowhere for him to be hiding. She pokes her head into the bathroom and finds nothing. She would think she's crazy if it isn't for the stain on the ground and bandage on her arm.

"Good," she says out loud, after a moment, nodding and putting the room key on the top of the bureau. "He's alive, and he left. Of course he left." She mumbles the rest to herself and pulls off her clothes, changing into the red and white bathing suit she bought a while back. Seth had been there, and it was him that told her which one to get. She tries not to think about it as she pulls it on. She tries not to think about either of the Geckos.

She unwraps her arm and removes the butterfly stitches, washing her arm and wondering how this turned into her life. Giving blood for a culebra who once kidnapped her, who once scared her and asked for her forgiveness with fingers curled around hers. She recloses the wound, again wondering if she should try stitching it up, but the thought makes her stomach turn. She needs to lose herself; she needs to take a swim no matter how much pain it might cause her.

She takes a towel and leaves the door unlocked, just in case Richie comes back. She can't help it.

No one is supposed to be in the pool after dark, but she slips through the gaps in the fence and goes there anyway. No one is there to stop her from diving into the deep end of the pool. The water is the perfect temperature, not too warm, not too cold, and she surfaces after a few seconds, gasping for air and pushing her hair back. She bobs there, treading water for a while before she begins to swim back and forth. She swims for a few laps until she rolls over onto her back and floats under the darkening sky.

She doesn't know how long she's been floating there, feeling the water growing cooler and cooler around her. She sees the stars and notices how different they are from Texas. She moves around in the slight current and closes her eyes after a while.

"You okay?" The voice rings through the air, causing her to open her eyes.

She doesn't gasp this time; she almost expected it. Kate turns her head, spotting Richie by the edge of the pool, suit jacket buttoned up to hide the bloodstain on his shirt. He looks okay, a lot better than before. Her body dips down under the water, but she stays where she is, treading water.

"I'm fine," she lies through her teeth. She is anything but fine.

He nods. She can just make out the contours of his face in the shadows and dim lights from in front of every door on this side of the hotel. "Thanks," he says, lifting a hand and running it through his disheveled hair.

Kate moves a little farther from him in the water. Her mind has gone from being a blank slate to being nothing but the twists and turns of a confused soul.

"I've missed you," he confesses, as he watches her move away, like it pains him to say. Kate wants to believe him, but there's a little spark of anger growing in her that won't allow it. "I didn't mean to show up like I did. I couldn't think of anywhere else to go."

Kate takes in a breath that tastes of chlorine and sandstone. He's asking for forgiveness in the only way that Richie knows how. She shakes her head and moves her fingers through the water, keeping herself afloat. "You left me," Kate points out. The water moves gently, lapping up the edges of the pool. "You honest to God  _left_  me, Richie. You can't just swoop back in here and think I'm just gonna take you back." The water is cold. It keeps her on her toes.

"You're right," he says, eyebrows rising. He has those stupid glasses perched on his nose, like always. Kate hates herself for thinking how much she's missed the sight of them, of him in general. So much, in fact, that she has to stay in the pool to keep the distance between them literal. "I know you're upset, and I'm sorry I left. I had things to do."

"Yeah," Kate scoffs, lifting a hand and smoothing her hair back. "You said that when you left. Like it was a legitimate excuse. It's not, by the way, unless you tell me what you were doin'."

Richie takes a breath and tilts his head back for a moment, obviously annoyed with her. And he  _should_  be. As much as she wants to launch herself out of the pool at the sight of him and throw herself into his arms, she wants him to suffer, to squirm, and to feel the discomfort of not always getting his way. "Kate, c'mon, get outta the pool."

"Why?" She's so stubborn it's getting close to making  _her_  annoyed with herself.

"Because I don't want to talk about this here. Someone's bound to notice and we'll get interrupted. I don't wanna get interrupted."

She thinks it's because he's hungry that he's getting irritated, but then again, she's been keeping away from him ever since she cut open her arm for him. When she went back to the room and found him gone, he must have been off getting a meal. She tries not to think about it as she slowly moves to the steps in the corner of shallow end.

He's there the second she looks up, extending a hand. She hesitates. If she takes it, what does that say about her? Does it mean she's weak? She doesn't want to be weak, and she's felt weak ever since he left her. Just the sight of him has fueled her fire again. But, she takes his hand anyway, their skin the same cooled temperature. As much as she wants to hold onto him, she lets go as soon as her feet touch dry concrete, still warm from the sun. She walks over to grab her towel, refusing to just stare and look him in the eyes like she wants to.

"Is this the silent treatment?" he asks, turning and watching her wrap herself up in the hotel towel. He and Seth liked to talk too much to sit through silence. They would rather talk through a stretch of silence than sit through it. Kate knows this from much experience.

Kate twists around and looks back at him, raising her eyebrows. "I'm  _angry_ ," she says, because maybe he doesn't realize just how much he hurt her when he left without anything but the memory of a searing kiss and a circlet to protect herself with. She doesn't say anything else, but she hears him follow her back to the room. Her heart pounds, but she doesn't even know why—because he's alive? Because he wants to actually talk to her and isn't just running off? Because she's  _that_  angry with him?

The room smells like chemicals when she steps inside and she avoids the bloodstain on the floor in her bare feet. It's dry by now, but she still keeps her distance. She doesn't tell him what she's doing, she just walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.

She sinks back against it and closes her eyes, breathing deep. She can't talk to herself, elsewise he will hear her. She listens for the door, to see if he's left, but he hasn't moved as far as she can tell.

Eventually, she can't stay still any more and drops her towel. She turns the shower on and lets the sound of the running water fill her ears.

She hesitates before stripping off her suit, as if she's expecting him to barge in. He doesn't. She steps under the water and lets all her troubles, for the moment, wash away. Her arm starts to sting, but she ignores it. She washes away the chlorine and buffs away the anger to a dull thrill in the pit of her stomach.

Kate scrubs her skin clean and rinses her hair twice until it feels dry despite the waterfall crashing down over her. Her ears ring with the silence of the room when the water cuts off. She runs her hands down over her skin, swiping off the gathered drops like dew and wrings out her hair. She steps out of the tub and onto the rug, her toes sinking into the loose fibers. She's just about moved into this hotel room, keeping her clothes in the cabinet in the corner of the small room. She doesn't have much, but she pulls on a pair of underwear and an oversized shirt with three buttons at the neck, undone and hanging lose around her collarbone, and halfway down her thighs.

She inspects her injury and wraps her fingers around her arm, below the slice. She squeezes and drinks in the shoot of pain. It gives her life; it reminds her that she's the one alive in this hotel room. Not Richie, just her. There's no Seth nearby to help, and an angry Richie could very well kill her if he wanted. She doesn't know why he was gone so long, who injured him so badly, or why he had nowhere else to go. Could she really be the only place he has left?

The notion tugs at her heart and she has to steel herself away before she opens up the door and steps out of the bathroom. Richie is sitting at the table under the window, lounged back like he hadn't just almost died in this very room. If he had a bandage around his left hand and a gun in his right, he would look so much like the Richie in the hotel room, back before they all headed to the RV to drive south.

"What're you doin' here, Richie?" she asks, crossing her arms and planting her feet against the carpet. She wants to fold, to forgive and forget, but it's impossible now. She can't allow herself to be that girl. "Are you gonna apologize? If you're lookin' for forgiveness, I ain't swayed so easy."

Richie tilts his head and sets his eyes on her with something like adoration in their depths. "You spilled your blood for me," he says, standing up, walking closer, right over the stain on the carpet.

Kate falters, anger momentarily forgotten. "You were…dying." She swallows, her throat feeling dry again.

He doesn't explain how that was possible. He doesn't offer her an explanation as to why he was so gravely injured, how he found her, or how her blood had miraculously healed him. "Your soul is dimming," he says, running his fingertips down her throat and chest to the edge of her shirt. "It used to be so bright."

"That's your fault," she tells him, keeping up with the change of subject. She kept that brightness for a year, with Seth and Richie by her side, through the swarms of culebra, and through the warm, bloody nights. But then, her world fell to pieces. Seth left first, and Richie may as well have stabbed her in the gut and twisted the knife when he left and never returned. There was only so much she could handle. God overestimated her ability to deal with such pain. "You left me."

"I'm here now," he says, as if that will make everything better. He lifts his other hand to her face, but Kate steps back, out of his grasp. Her mind is flooding with memories: of the heat of battles thrumming through her veins and the sight of Richie with blood drenched down his front, of his scales and fangs fading away before smothering her in a gory kiss.

Kate shakes her head, hoping he doesn't notice the glistening sheen of tears in her eyes. "Why did you leave?" she asks him, keeping her arms crossed tightly across her chest like a shield. "And where have you been the last two months? What happened to you?"

Richie doesn't move closer. He doesn't want to answer her, but he has to, because that's the only way they'll get anywhere. Him giving her that miniature rapier was one step forward, but his disappearance had been two steps backward. Kate waits expectantly, clenching her teeth together to stop herself from doing or saying something to nullify the brave front she's trying to put up.

Because how could she tell him how hard it was? How could she tell him that, after the third week slipped by—and he didn't arrive like a blinding dark knight the midst of a culebra battle that landed her with a sprained wrist—she felt pieces of herself flaking away, and she couldn't gather up all of them by herself. After that, she didn't have nightmares of culebra trying to kill her—instead, she had dreams where she was lost in a dark abyss, searching for something that she was never able to grasp.

All of those things made her sound so weak, but they were true. She feels the world pushing down on her. She has nothing to keep her mind off of the death of her father at her own hands when she is alone and awake in the dark of night. She has had no one to keep her mind off of not having anyone. And yet, she has continued on, without him  _and_  without Seth. She wears her pain like armor, and it clouded her soul.

"Carlos happened," Richie says finally, popping the button on his jacket and revealing the bloody shirt underneath. "He almost killed me, getting back at Santanico for breaking his heart or whatever the hell he claims she did to him."

Kate swallows and glances down at the stain. "Why didn't you heal from it?"

"Culebra fine print, remember?" He starts inching toward her. "We can't always heal from severe wounds without some help."

Kate's stomach clenches at the memory of cutting her own arm and letting her blood mingle with his.

"I would have died if you hadn't helped me." He lifts his hand again, only to brush aside the wet strands of hair sticking to her cheek. "Thank you, Kate."

She blinks and hesitates, almost letting herself loosen her arms, but she doesn't. "I wouldn't know what to do with a dead body," she says. She can't imagine a culebra turning to ash and flames if they weren't killed the way she killed them. Maybe he would have just hung on the edge of death until she had to put a stake through his heart. She knows she could have done that if it was the case. It wouldn't be the first time she staked someone who had her love.

The corners of his mouth twitch up into a smirk. "I was trying to convince Santanico that I didn't need to be with her all the time," he says, moving onto her first question. "She didn't take it very well. She has a temper." Kate raises her eyebrows at the obvious observation. Richie shrugs and continues. "I would have come back sooner, but she had me running trials and I couldn't get away. And then Carlos found us. We had to run, but he caught up, nearly killed me and took her."

He doesn't sound sympathetic toward Santanico being taken, and it gives Kate the ghost of a thrill down her spine. "For over two months?" she asks, still unwavering. She wants to squeeze as much out of him as she can, to force him to say the things she needs to hear to justify him leaving her. Or, at least to be able to accept it. She cannot always justify his actions, and they both know it.

Richie closes his eyes and lets out a breath, dipping his head down a little. "Kate, I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you." He's on the verge of leaving her again. She can hear it in his voice.

"Can I ask you something?" She didn't realize it until now, but she's been moving backwards from him since he stepped forward and she's close to the wall beside the bathroom door. She stops now and holds her ground.

He raises his eyebrows and nods, though he does reach out a hand to pry apart her arms until he has her left arm in hand and he runs the pad of his thumb over the bright white stitches keeping the wound there closed.

"Did you sleep with her?"

Richie's eyebrows do their own thing again and he even lifts his head at the blatant question. "Really?"

She nods once. Kate's not judging him—she really can't say anything due to her indiscretions with Seth—but she wants to know, regardless.

He takes his time answering. Kate feels her anger slipping away, but she tries to keep her face neutral as she waits.

Eventually, Richie tilts his head to the side and hesitates only for a moment more before he lets go of her arm and lifts his hand, holding his index and thumb apart an inch or so. "A little bit," he finally answers.

Kate sucks her lips between her teeth and tries not to laugh. The look on his face is absolutely absurd. She has a hard time remembering that he's the same person who could tear another culebra in half with nothing but his bare hands. She composes herself and shrugs instead. "I used to make out with Seth when he got drunk." She doesn't need to say it because she knows he knows. She has to say it because it's eating at her. Not that it was unpleasant, but because of the smack in the face she got when Seth showed up with Vanessa.

The words simmer in the air, honest and humorous. When did this become Kate's life? When did  _this_  become her life? This conversation, this hotel room, this man in front of her that wasn't even human anymore? She can't remember the exact moment when she found herself okay with all of it, but she's grown so accustomed to it that she can't even think of what her life would be like if her family and the Gecko brothers never crossed paths.

"Are you done?" Richie asks, his tone lighter than before. All of the heavy stuff is there, out in the open and swept under the rug for later inspection and dissection.

Kate backs up the tiniest bit until her spine hits the wall, creating a little more space between them. She looks up and the smallest smile sneaks across her face. "Yes." She's finished with making him see how badly she felt about his wordless disappearance.

"Good," he says, grabbing her waist without warning and pulling her toward him, his other hand sliding over her cheek, his fingers threading through her hair. He kisses her before she can get a word out.

Kate's eyes flutter closed. She slides her arms around him, under his jacket, digging her nails into the fabric of his shirt as she pulls him closer.

He kisses her hard and fast and she's left breathless with stars dancing in front of her eyes once he pulls back. His breath is surprisingly warm against her lips as she tries to suck in as much fresh air as she can. "I haven't said sorry that much to anyone in my life."

Kate snickers and slides her hands around his ribcage and up his chest. "That supposed to make me feel special?" she asks him, pushing herself onto the tips of her toes. A smirk tugs at her lips as she curls her fingers around the back of his neck.

"You don't need me to tell you that you're special," he says seriously, sliding his hand across the small of her back.

Kate opens her eyes wide and leans against him, smoothing her hands down from his neck and pushing them under the shoulders of his jacket. "It's nice to hear," she tells him softly, trying to nudge his jacket off. He's still looking at her like she said something peculiar and still has one arm around her and the other cupping her face. "Are you okay?" she asks finally, dropping down to the heels of her feet. "I didn't mean to offend you or anythin'."

He shakes his head and blinks slowly, much like an owl. "Your soul used to shine to bright, it almost hurt to look at you," he says and Kate drops her hands to rest against his waist. She knows that she's suffered being alone the past three months, ever since Seth left, but she didn't realize how much it influenced her very soul.

Richie lets go of her in favor of cupping her face with both hands, for a brief, sweet moment before he drops them and circles his fingers around her wrists.

"And now?" she asks in a steadily shaking voice.

He removes her hands and steps back a little, pulling off his suit jacket as he spoke. "It's tarnished, like I'm looking through etched glass."

Kate's face falls slightly as her arms fall away from him and she presses her palms flat against the wall behind her. "Do you not want me anymore?" she asks, voice small.

"I never said that," Richie says, that offended tone creeping back in. By now, his fingers have worked down the buttons on his shirt, half crimson and half white, and he pulls the shirt off. His skin is smooth and unblemished without a single trace of the grievous wound. "Why do you think I'm taking my clothes off?"

Kate presses her lips together and tilts her head back against the wall. "You're gettin' warm?" she asks teasingly.

He lays his shirt all nice and neat over his jacket on the end of the bureau and lets out a huff of laughter. "I don't get warm," he replies, stepping closer to her and sliding his hands down the slope of her neck, her shoulders, down her biceps and then against her waist. She can almost feel his rough skin through the thin shirt. "But I can sure as hell make  _you_  warm."

Kate raises her eyebrows while trying to scrabble for a comeback, but fails to think of one before he grabs her by her hipbones and pulls her close against him. Her hands go to his shoulders to steady herself, and his skin is cool under her fingers. She sucks in a short breath before he covers her mouth with his. She makes a little noise of surprise in the back of her throat while her heart flutters against the cage of her ribs. Her fingers slide through the short hair at the nape of his neck and she almost bites down on his lip when he lifts her a few inches off the ground. Her nails sink into his skin and she breaks their kiss for a chance to fill her lungs with oxygen, her nose bumping his, heat gliding across her body in waves.

"What was that?" she asks, voice low and breathy.

He smirks and presses another kiss to her open mouth, pulling her closer until she can't breathe from his strength pushing the air out of her lungs. His glasses have slid down his nose; they bump against hers and she pushes them back with her own fingertips. He lifts her again, this time more deliberately than before. Kate's arms anchor themselves around his shoulders and her ankles lock behind him, her thighs pressing against his hips.

Her back presses against the wall as he keeps his hands steady on her waist, her hair falling around their faces in drying clumps. Kate hooks her arms around his neck as his mouth slips across her skin, against her jaw, down her throat. Her heart beats loudly in her ears and she wonders how loud it is for him, and if it drives him crazy, but she can't concentrate long enough on her skittering thoughts to ask.

His hand glides over her hip and down her thigh, fingers scraping against her skin just enough for her to feel. Kate wants to fill the silence, the nervousness within her driving her mad. The coolness of his entire body sends chills rippling through her. She tilts her head until it bumps back against the wall. He kisses her hummingbird pulse point at the dip in her collarbone, his hand slipping back up her thigh, under her shirt, his fingers tracing lines of ice across her flesh like glaciers.

While his fingers trace along her ribs, she lets out a gasp when his teeth nip at the thin skin over her breastplate. He drags the nails on his other hand down her back while she slides her fingers through his hair and tugs at it slightly whenever something jumps in her belly. The fingers under her shirt brush the underside of her breasts and, for some reason, she expects him to bite her. Her neck is exposed, and she doesn't think she'd fight him if he did. Instead, he takes a moment to rest his forehead against her chest, his glasses slipping down and pressing into her flesh. He must be able to feel her heartbeat.

"Richie," she says softly, guiding his head back and leaning down to press her forehead against his. She doesn't have to say anything else—she isn't sure she could string together enough words to complete a sentence even if she wanted to—because he moves her like she's the ocean and he's the moon, pulling her wherever he wants her to go and she wiling goes with him.

He carries her across the room and lets her down gently on the middle of the bed, half-sitting. He doesn't even bother letting a second pass before he slides both of his hands up her sides and pulls her shirt free from her form. It tangles in her hair for a moment and a bout of breathy laughter escapes Kate's throat, which Richie eats up greedily as soon as the shirt is tossed aside. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her, sliding his tongue over her bottom lip and pressing her back into the mattress. He pushes her legs apart with one of his and hovers over her, pushing his tongue into her mouth and gaining a gasp and a tangle of jittery fingers through his hair.

Every part of her has a pulse. Her heart can hardly keep up and her breathing is nothing but staggered panting. Richie slides up and his knee rubs at the apex of her thighs and she loses all fight in the kiss and her hands simply float down his bare chest—as far as she can reach before she slides them over his hips and lets her fingers fall between the ridges of his ribs. He moves back to kissing a burning column down her neck and she blinks at the dark ceiling, sucking in a sharp breath the moment he makes it to her breasts and he bites down around her nipple, not hard but enough to catch her off guard.

" _Richie_ ," she says, her voice thin, but she's determined to have a conversation of some kind because she can feel her hands shaking from nerves. He mumbles something against her skin and kisses her sternum and she can feel his chest resting between her legs and sucks in a breath that raises her chest. His hands are sliding down her sides slowly, tantalizing in the way they send chills dancing across and under her skin. "I still have that circ _let_ —" her voice jumps when he takes her other nipple into his mouth and sucks and bites gently against the tender skin and her heart beats three times as fast for many thundering seconds after, "—you stole for me."

She can feel him smile against her skin and he slides on up her torso again, keeping his hands at her hips. His glasses are dangerously close to falling off his face so she lifts her hands and pushes them back behind his ears. She knows he doesn't need them, but she also knows that his vision will just adjust to them no matter what, and she likes him far better with them on. They remind her that he was once human, like she is.

"Yeah?" he breathes against her, his breath cool against her heated flesh. The only warmth about him is whatever body heat he absorbs from her, radiated back at her. "Have you used it in a fight yet?"

She nods, her hands resting on either side of his neck. She can't feel a pulse, but she can feel her own heart pumping faster and faster, right to the tips of her fingers. "Like it was made for me," she says, leaning up and kissing the corner of his mouth. Then, he pulls her hips up and she lets out a puff of air against his chin.

He dips his head and buries it against her neck, his teeth scraping against her skin, followed by his soft lips. Kate closes her eyes as shocks shoot through every part of her and she can feel the warmth pooling between her legs—he hasn't even touched her there. He moves to her shoulder and nips at the skin, leaving little red marks in a line over the top of her right breast. He slinks down, hands keeping her hips down as he kisses along the path he's forging on her stomach, over her navel, and lower. She's lost contact with him and lays her hands flat against the mattress, eyes fluttering open and closed, turned toward the ceiling.

Richie kisses her inner thigh, fingers slipping under the edges of her cotton panties. Everything she owns is simple and far from anything remotely sexy, but she doesn't care because they'll be in a pile on the floor soon anyway. Her skin is alight with tingling nerves and a soft moan escapes her throat as he kisses down one leg to her knee and up from the other to her inner thigh again.

"Kate?" his voice comes at her quietly in the dark haze.

She opens her eyes to a water stain on the ceiling. "Yeah?"

"Did my brother ever do this to you?"

Kate rolls her eyes and lifts her hands, pressing her wrists to her forehead. "We're not havin' this conversation."

He drags his blunt nails down her outer thighs, to which she bites down on her bottom lip to keep the noises building inside her chest from escaping.

He doesn't even need to ask again, she answers the unspoken question. "No, no, nothin' like this," she says, wondering what smug satisfaction Richie expects out of her answer.

"Good," he says, dropping his head and kissing her just below the navel, his lips cool and soft. "I want you all to myself."

She props herself up on her elbows, squinting down in the darkness at him. He's kissing across the top band of her underwear, soft and airy between words. "I always felt connected to you. When I first saw you, you weren't like the others. There was never anything dark about you." He kisses down the front of her right thigh and yet her body is still alight from the sweet, simple touches. Her heart is slowly catching up to the buzzing under her skin and her lips are gaining a break from raw kisses that steal the oxygen from her lungs. "You were always a light, and I could have followed you forever."

"Could have, should have," she whispers, letting herself back against the mattress. He moves his fingers again and she can barely feel the material of her underwear start to slide away from its place.

"I'll follow you now," he says, and she believes him.

She gives him that. He does. He did. He has. He found her, and she saved him.

Kate takes in a shaky breath when he pulls the fabric from her hips and down her legs. The moonlight barely trickles into the room. She wonders how much Richie can see in the dimness.

As his words sink in, she feels whatever lingering nervousness slipping away.

Her mind muddles again and forming coherent words become something of an issue when he kisses her again, and moves his hands up her thighs to her hips again, dragging her down the mattress so she's closer to him. He kisses the top of her thigh and her breaths are rocky already before he pushes her legs apart. His lips trail a line from mid-thigh, closer and closer and Kate's heart is having a hard time catching up again.

She's already wet and warm when he pushes a finger inside and runs his tongue over the bundle of nerves there at the same time. Kate's eyes flutter and she digs her hands into the covers under her. He's holding onto her, arm pressing over her abdomen to keep her hips from jerking up, but that doesn't stop her from curling her toes and forgetting all of those half-hearted attempts she made to try to replicate this feeling. Because nothing ever came close.

Her whole body is tense and shudders every time he moves his finger inside and out—twists and turns and moves it like the serpent he is. He moves a little bit closer, sliding his hand up the middle of her torso, still keeping her pinned against the mattress. He slides his finger in and out and flicks his thumb over her clitoris, while her insides twist and burn and jump and her muscles clench and tremble, and she lets out small, breathy mewls and whispers of his name intermixed with pleads about God.

Richie rests his head against her chest, his forehead against her throat, his glasses digging into her skin. She hardly even registers it, especially when he adds another finger and she lifts her hips up and her fingers nearly rip the fabric she's grasping. " _Kate, Kate, Kate_ ," he whispers against her skin, puffs of cool air that tickling her skin. He kisses the dainty underside of her chin and she feels the tension coil in her stomach. Her head tips back against the bed and she moves her hand, digging her nails into his wrist of the hand pressed between her breasts when she sees heaven and earth move behind her eyelids.

Richie keeps her where she is, even though she wants to curl up in the warmth forever. He still moves his fingers in twists and turns. She feels her muscles clench around them as her shoulders lift off the mattress. One last " _oh my God_ " sneaks past her lips before her mind and limbs go fuzzy and she's feeling haggard already, her body covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

Richie turns his head and savors her salty skin with kisses and nips before he removes his fingers and lifts them to his lips, tasting her. He lets out a sigh that sounds like heaven to her ears as he crawls up her body, fingers scraping along as he goes. Kate's lips part as she gets that tingly feeling back in her fingertips, her toes, the roots of her hair,  _everywhere_ , and gets the taste of something unfamiliarly salty on her lips, lingering on Richie's mouth.

"You taste so sweet," he says against her lips. Kate squirms underneath him, wanting more it—more of everything. She even catches his bottom lip between her teeth and pulls before he's picking her up with him and she's sitting while he's standing.

Everything is hard to make out in the dimness, and so Kate sees with her hands, running them down his chest, dragging them over his abs. She catches the waistband of his trousers and starts to unbutton them, her hands doing that shaking thing again that she can't control. Richie adds his hands to the mix and his pants drop to the floor before she realizes that they're gone. Richie hooks his fingers around her wrists and moves a little away from her, and returns to her moments later without any clothes.

It's probably a good thing she can't see very well, because she already feels the heat race to her cheeks the moment he guides her hand to the length of him. Her breathing comes up short and he moves her hand for her, guides her, and she ends up on her feet again, leaning on her tiptoes and dragging him down to meet her for a hard, sloppy kiss with her free hand. The motion causes his glasses to fall and bump against her nose. He pushes them back up the bridge of his nose.

All of the things he'd been doing for her have definitely been doing things for him.

He lets go of her hand once she masters the motion and she follows his lead, kissing his neck and feeling the coolness of his entire body bleed into her. She lightly bites at the fleshy parts of his chest as his hands slide through her hair. She feels a burst of pride when she gains a low throaty moan from him with one leisurely movement of her hand down his shaft.

He takes her hand and tugs her close. He tilts her head back and kisses her long and lingering, until she feels faint.

"You're gonna follow me now, right?" she says against his mouth, her free hand digging into his hair at the base of his neck.

"Oh, God yes," he groans and she can't help but grin.

He kisses her again and slides his hands down her naked form pulling her flush against him.

"No, no, wait," she says, pushing at his shoulders a little and he pulls back. "The blanket's too scratchy."

He arches an eyebrow at her and there's a flurry of a moment when the covers are yanked away from the bed and shoved to the foot of it before Kate crawls onto the fresh sheets and he follows, grabbing her hips and pulling her toward him as they lay on their sides. Their lips clash and she runs her nails down his chest, leaving angry red marks to match the nips with her picket white teeth.

Kate's heart is back to beating a cadence she's only felt this once as she pushes him back against the mattress. He moves with her, the ebb and flow of the tide and the moon, and doesn't protest when her knees dig into the mattress at either side of his hips. She leans down over him with half dried hair tickling his chest, dipping her head enough to suck and catch his skin between her teeth. She reaches a hand behind her and nudges against his erection and he does that throaty moan again—it's got her insides twisting and the corners of her mouth tugging upward. She smirks as his hands fall to her hips and she moves back a little.

Words and coherence aren't things that either of them have contact with at the moment. But both of them breath deep when he enters her folds and she sinks down just a bit, her hands now spreading out across his chest, his fingers digging into her thighs. He mumbles her name over and over and over again and she nods into the darkness as a reassurance to herself. Her body is electric, growing used to the unfamiliar feeling but she wants him so badly and it shows in the way everything falls into place.

She swivels her hips and a "Jesus Christ" escapes Richie's lips. She leans forward and drags her nails up his chest though all of her strength is going into her legs to keep them from shaking. Her hands snake up his neck and she leans over him, moving him out of her just a bit. The motion causes all kinds of nerves to jump inside of her and she gasps over his mouth, her eyes closing as she slides her hands over his shoulders and presses her forehead against his. He slides his hands around her hips and ass and she moves her hips back and forth with his guiding hands until she figures out which muscles to use and her hand presses over where his heart would be.

Their breaths mingle, hot and cold, and Richie moves his hands to her waist to bring her down against his hips harder. Kate pants, her hair cascading around their faces.

"Richie," she whispers out, over and over again.

He moves his hand to her face, sliding it around her cheek and into her hair. He kisses her once—simple and chaste—and she stops moving, sinking back against his full length, which in itself causes a moan to grow in her throat. "Hey, Kate, hey—look at me," he says, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Her eyes flutter open and she sees his, all baby blue in a dim beam of moonlight slipping through the curtains.

He kisses her again, leisurely, sucking her lip into his mouth and circles his arms around her middle, rolling them over so her back presses against the mattress. He slips almost fully out of her and she makes a sound of protest at all the moving around. Her eyes flutter open and closed as he moves from kissing her to letting to her gulp in fresh air. He slides a hand back down her side and hooks his fingers behind her knee, moving her leg up and over his hip. Her other follows more or less as her hands smooth across his back.

He moves back inside her. The position is different and her breath hitches, but everything falls into place again and he leans down over her, sliding a hand under her shoulder to give himself some leverage as he begins to move in and out, in and out. Kate nearly whimpers at the sensation of being filled to the brim. He kisses her chin, runs his free hand down her arm, removing it from his back and lacing his fingers with hers, pressing her arm back down against the mattress beside her head.

His thrusts are steady and growing faster still. Kate can barely catch her breath and she keeps getting bumped on the nose with his glasses so much that she moves her hand around his neck and keeps moving them back into place. He keeps sliding his lips down her neck to her collarbone and her hips keep rising to meet his as his thrusts grow faster and harder. She gasps for breath every time and has her wide eyes open, finding his in the darkness when he leans close, their noses and lips bumping together.

Anything slipping out of their mouths are names or pleas to a god who would surely not condone their actions, but that's all either of them can manage between the moans and the creaks of the mattress.

Kate doesn't know how the time passes, if it's really slow or fast—she's lost total sense of it. All she knows is that with each buck of her hips she feels closer to the edge. Richie bites down on her throat with just his blunt, human teeth as Kate digs her fingernails so hard into his back that it nearly draws blood in the shape of crescent moons.

" _Kate, Kate, Kate_ ," he says again and again and again, against her throat, slicking up her skin with each press of his lips.

She wants to tell him he can bite her if he wants, she's so euphoric right now she thinks she won't care, but she never gets the words out. She hits her climax when he tilts his hips and lifts her knee just so, and she cries out because in the same instant, Richie's fangs are sinking into her flesh. She shudders around him as her toes curl and her eyes squeeze shut, feeling blood drip down her neck as she turns her head to the side. It's fitting, in this moment, she thinks; she misses the taste of blood between them. He keeps moving, riding her through her orgasm that sends sunspots across her vision and her hips buck every time he slides into her.

Every muscle of hers is still tense, ready to snap again when he moves to kiss her lips. She tastes copper when his tongue slides into her open mouth and she manages to catch his moan. She sucks in a breath against his lips as the  _snap_  comes and her muscles smooth out. He slows his thrusts until he stops, still buried in her warmth and buries his face into the crook of her neck. His lips slide over the bite marks.

Her heart is pounding. She curls her fingers along the base of his neck and he unlaces his fingers from hers, tucking both of his arms under her shoulders and pulling her up a fraction from the mattress so there is no space between them.

She can feel his tongue against her neck, though the punctures are small and blood isn't gushing, but she knows he can taste the copper. She can still taste it on the back of her throat.

He shifts a little so his face hovers over hers. She pushes his glasses into place with her index finger, a warm smile lighting up her features.

"I think I could love you," he says after a long, quiet moment. Kate's eyebrows rise, but she can't say anything before he's giving her one last chaste kiss on the mouth before he places his hands on her hips and moves out of her. Kate doesn't take his words to heart, but they make her heart flutter anyway. She already misses him when he settles down next to her on the mattress.

She doesn't say anything back, because she's still upset about him leaving and still too enraptured to process all of the emotions. She rolls onto her side instead, sliding her leg over his and pressing her chest against his side, letting her arm slide across his torso so she can rest her head against his shoulder.

"Remember when we first met?"

Kate resists rolling her eyes at the cliché remark. She doesn't see Richie as one that gets hooked up on the past, and yet it doesn't feel out of character for him to ask her that. She blames the—probably tens, if not  _hundreds_  of—movie characters that he's taken bits and pieces from to create his image. In there, there's gotta be a cliché romantic under the gangster swagger and thirst for violence. "Yes," she says at last, splaying her fingers out over his skin. It's flawless, but it shouldn't be. He should be covered in scars—he should be dead in the ground, sporting a stitched up chest from the ranger's fatal bullet. But his flesh is smooth and new.

"You said that you felt like your life and everything in it was just turning upside like a ship in the ocean."

"Are you quotin' something I said back at me?" she teases lightly, tilting her head upward against his shoulder, just in time to catch him roll his eyes.

"Do you still feel like that?" he asks, fingertips tracing invisible shapes and patterns across the expanse of her skin.

Kate takes in a deep breath and scoots over a little bit so she can prop her arm up against his chest and look down at him. He raises his eyebrows and waits. Her arm is still sporting a deep cut and she has puncture wounds in her neck, but she's never felt so intoxicated and overwhelmed with emotion than she does right now. She lifts her hand from his chest and runs her thumb across his bottom lip.

"Yeah," she says honestly. "And my anchors have a habit of disappearin'." She rests her fingers against the side of his face and breaths deep.

"Gecko family habit," he says like it is distasteful on his tongue.

Kate nods and settles her head against the curve of his neck, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. His arm is slung across her back, hand resting against her bare hip. "We all gotta stop runnin' away," she says after a few minutes, drawing an invisible  _G_  on his chest. "We're better together."

"Shhhh," he says, rubbing his thumb gently across her skin, back and forth, back and forth. "We're not having that conversation now, remember?"

Kate rolls her eyes and presses a kiss against his collarbone before letting her eyes close.

He's chilly, but it's like she's on fire and doesn't mind the open air of the room. She drifts off, molded against his form. Her soul is humming contentedly, a soft buzzing all the way to her fingertips. It's still dimmer than when they first met, but it's lighter than it was just hours before.

And all it took was a little sin in the shadows to bring back the light.


End file.
